Zero to Max 1: Ghost of a chance
by NetRaptor
Summary: When a lone ghost discovers a corpse at the base of the City's wall, she begins investigating the cause of the murder. But she uncovers a vein of corruption within New Monarchy that indicates there is a killer hiding in the Tower ... a killer who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends.
1. Chapter 1

The day I found the body, my life changed dramatically.

You might laugh at me for that. "You're a Ghost," you might say. "Looking at bodies is your job as you try to find your Guardian."

Which is true. The huge alien sphere called the Traveler created us ghosts and sent us out to find our partners. Each of us is a little robot-like creature, little more than a mechanical eye in a double triangle shell. But once we find our companion, living or dead, we bond to them, and can heal or resurrect them as often as necessary. Guardians are warriors, so healing and resurrections happen all the time.

We Ghosts wandered Earth and the other planets and moons, hunting for the elusive spark of our Chosen. Some of us wandered for hundreds of years.

But the body I found wasn't my Guardian.

He was a middle-aged man, his body badly damaged from a fall from an immense height. I was working just outside the walls of the Last City at the time. They towered overhead, seventy stories tall, like a concrete cliff. It was obvious to me how the man had died. Maybe he had been walking along the top of the wall and lost his footing. The wind blew hard up there sometimes. I played my scan beam over him, looking for the spark of my Guardian.

No spark. But my scanner uncovered other data. His clothing was good quality, and the New Monarchy symbol gleamed on a shoulder patch. And what were these dark marks on his neck? They looked like bruises. Had he been choked to death before falling off the wall?

I studied these details, scanning them over and over as I thought about it. I had seen a lot of bodies - fresh ones slain by aliens, long-dead skeletons, decaying corpses in shallow graves. I'd seen a lot of ways people could die - wounds, exposure, starvation, drowning, the list went on.

But this was the first death that truly worried me. This was the City wall. I was only following it to reach one of the cemeteries that lay a few miles further onward. Some ghosts had reported finding their Guardians there, and I was eager to try. Along the way, I had discovered what appeared to be a murder victim. No Guardians came out here. The body could have rotted away to powder before anyone would have found it. It was pure chance that I had happened across it.

I scanned the dead man again, looking for identification. The pockets of his clothing were empty. I scanned his fingerprints and retinas, instead. Then I connected to the Vanguard database.

The signal wasn't great, there at the base of the wall, so far from the networks. I checked the personnel database for a match, but found no hits. Of course not - this database was Guardians only. This was a human.

I queried the database for New Monarchy's members, but hit a security layer I lacked the access codes to. As I tried a few basic logins, another Ghost hailed me.

"Zero! What do you think you're doing?"

Her tag said Priscilla, another unbonded ghost looking for her Guardian. Priscilla was the one Ghost I did not want to speak to right now.

I looked up and saw her in the distance, primly flying back and forth above the dry weeds of the distant cemetery. "Did you ditch another spark for a dead coyote?" she laughed. "I swear, Zero, you are the dumbest Ghost I've ever met. Coyotes aren't Guardians."

Embarrassment burned through my core. She had caught me avoiding a potential Guardian and studying a dead animal, instead - and she had never let me live it down.

"There's a body here," I replied. "I think he was murdered."

"By the Fallen, yawn," Priscilla replied. "Seen it a million times, Zero. I know you're a moron, but you don't have to work so hard to prove it."

Her words stung. They always did. She and I were sisters, yet because of that one choice, I was the failure, the zero, the stupid one. I suppose another Ghost might have fired insults back at her, shut her up. But I never knew what to say. Maybe I had made the wrong choice, not bonding to that lonely spark. Being called stupid for so many years made me wonder if it was true.

So I didn't reply at all. Instead, I looked at the body again, the position, the injuries ... and the marks on the neck. This was someone from the Tower who had been murdered, I was certain. I had to tell someone.

I flew up the wall, headed for the Tower in the blue distance overhead. It took a long time to get there, and the wind grew stronger as I climbed, knocking me about. I spotted bits of blood on various ledges, marking the poor fellow's fall. I followed them, and arrived at about the place where he'd been pushed off.

It was an empty stretch of wall about half a mile from the Tower. Here the wall made a slight bend, the curve blocking the view of anyone patrolling. The parapet was only waist high - easy to push someone over.

I flew around the spot, looking for any further clues. Why had someone chosen this place to strangle that New Monarchy guy? Surely there were more secret places around - we may be at a distance from the Tower, but plenty of windows faced this direction.

I swept the parapet and floor with my scan beam, hunting for tiny details the way I hunted my Guardian. Something flashed in the light of my beam. On the other side of the walkway, against the inside of the parapet, there gleamed a tiny jewel. I flew up and studied it closely. A diamond of about five carats.

I stared at it, mystified. Was this connected to the man's death? Or was it sheer coincidence, dropped here by someone else?

I uploaded the diamond to my data storage, breaking down the atoms and accelerating them into the energy I carried in my core. I had a lot of odd trinkets in my storage, but no diamonds.

Puzzled and hoping I wasn't being stupid, I flew toward the Tower. I needed to tell someone about this.

* * *

My first thought was to approach the Vanguard. But as I peeked into the command room, my courage faltered. Commander Zavala? Too frightening, the way he glared at the screen in front of him, no doubt coordinating an attack against our enemies. Ikora Rey? The Void Light that shimmered around her terrified me. She was so powerful. Cayde-6? He was bent over a huge map, making tiny notes and talking to his ghost.

No, I couldn't bother them. I crept along the line of the ceiling, back through the next room, and hesitated near Lord Shaxx. He was working on his tablet, his horned head bowed. But his ghost floated at his shoulder, his eye following my movement.

"Hello," I ventured.

"Hello, little lady," he replied. "Need help with something?"

"Yes ..." I hesitated, spinning the back half of my shell left, then right. "I ... I found something that I need to report. A dead human."

"You want Tower security," Shaxx's ghost told me. "Across the courtyard, turn right, up the stairs. Look for the sign of the Cormorant Blade."

I bobbed politely. "Thank you, sir."

Shaxx's ghost immediately whispered this to his Guardian. Shaxx turned his head, listening, then shrugged and returned to his work. Investigating human deaths wasn't his job.

I flew out of the building, back into the sunny courtyard with its decorative trees and green lawns. Guardians gathered here and there, talking, eating lunch, helmets off, relaxed and smiling. I glanced at them uneasily as I flew by. Had one of them strangled a human and tossed him off the wall? But why? Guardians were meant to protect humanity, not randomly kill them. And there were no diamonds to be seen. Where had my tiny diamond come from?

I flew up the stairs, one more anonymous Ghost among my brethren, and found a door marked with the black wing and sword of the Cormorant Blade. I dispersed myself into energy and phased through the door.

I returned to solid form on the other side. Here was a fairly normal-looking office with several desks arranged side by side. All were unoccupied except one. A cracked mini blind cast a long ray of sunlight across the only Guardian there.

I mean, I knew he was a Guardian because his Ghost floated beside him. Otherwise, I never would have guessed. Most Guardians are slim and muscular from all the running and fighting they do. This man, however, was fat. I didn't know how else to phrase it. His belly overflowed onto his huge thighs, his arms were bigger around than my shell was wide, and he had a generous double chin. Instead of armor, he wore a loose shirt and sweatpants. His Ghost wore a courier shell, currently full of cookies. This Guardian was munching cookies with one hand and filling out paperwork with the other.

As I entered, both of them looked up. "Hey there," said the enormous Guardian. "Come in, come in. Got a message?"

I crept forward, nervously looking from the Guardian, to his ghost, and back. "Um, yes ... I need to report a security issue?"

"You've come to the right place," said the Guardian. "I'm Paul Johansson, detective with the Cormorant Blade. This is Bud, my Ghost. Say hi, Bud."

The Ghost with his shell full of cookies bobbed politely. "Hello."

If I could have gulped, I would have. "My name's Zero. I was looking for my Guardian outside the walls, when I found a dead person." I explained about the body and how the fall wasn't the cause of death. I projected the images I had captured in a holographic display.

Paul frowned and looked closely at the images, leaning one arm on his desk. "Any identification?"

"None, but I captured fingerprint and retinal scans."

Paul's wide face split in a grin. "Did you? That's some smart thinking. Transmit it to Bud and I'll do a check."

_Smart thinking_. I had done something smart. Not quite trusting the compliment, I forwarded the data.

Paul and Bud bent over a computer screen and murmured together about their findings. I floated there in the middle of the room, watching Bud's cookies. I kept waiting for him to forget about them and spin his shell, throwing them everywhere. He never quite did, although once he tipped precariously to one side.

"Ah," said Paul, leaning back in his creaking chair. He wore a grimly triumphant expression. "Seems our John Doe was one Bradley Veneer, assistant manager with New Monarchy's Vanguard branch. Hadn't even been reported missing." He rubbed his chins, gazing at his screen. "I'll send a crew to collect the body and take it to the morgue. We'll need a solid post-mortem to figure out the time of death." He looked at me, his gaze thoughtful. "You've been a lot of help, Zero. You can return to your business, now."

I hadn't told him about the diamond. I wasn't sure if I should, since there didn't seem to be much connection.

Besides, here in the Tower, I was surrounded by people who wouldn't call me stupid. Paul had said I was smart, even. I wouldn't find a Guardian here, but then again, I had probably passed up the only spark in the universe destined for me. I'd be a single ghost forever. Why not spend my time rooting out murderers walking around the Tower? I might save lives.

I twirled my shell nervously. "Please," I said, "do you think I could help investigate? I could observe over at the New Monarchy area. People say all kinds of things in front of ghosts."

"Hm." Paul looked at Bud, who nodded. "I guess it wouldn't hurt anything. Go ahead and poke around, Zero. If you find anything, I'll be here."

As I phased through the door, I caught Bud's parting remark. "Supposedly, she's the dumbest ghost the Traveler ever made."

I emerged in the hallway with my eye shut, struggling to master the shame and embarrassment that filled me. Even a Tower ghost knew about me. How far had Priscilla gossiped? So much for Paul's high opinion of me.

My core burning, I made my way through the Tower to New Monarchy's booth. It was a spacious place in a building off the hanger, with rich red hangings and a carpet to soften the concrete. Inside were soft-looking sofas with piles of throw pillows, along with tables for computers. Several New Monarchy members lounged on these sofas, working on tablets while sipping bright yellow drinks. Outside their booth was stacked dozens of pallets of wheat, oats, wool, and other raw goods to be shipped to their dealers in the Last City.

I ducked among these pallets and used them as cover to peek into the booth. I recognized Executor Hideo by his photo all over the Vanguard database. He was a smoothly handsome man with shrewd eyes, his head wrapped in a red scarf.

This looked like a good place to find a diamond. Hideo wore a gold necklace with an emerald in it, and several of the others wore necklaces, bracelets, or rings set with precious stones. Maybe one of them was missing a diamond. Maybe the killer. But at the moment, I dared venture no closer.

A dark-skinned woman turned to the man next to her. "Looks like the bakery chain just signed on for flour deliveries every other week."

"Standard contract, then," said the man next to her. "Five years?"

"They're asking three."

They went on about it for a while, haggling with this bakery chain down in the City. I listened, growing bored. While New Monarchy's political goals were to eventually set up a king and abolish the Vanguard, their day to day work was buying and selling goods. They oversaw the stock market, kept supply lines open despite Fallen incursions, managed the outlying farms, that sort of thing.

After a while, another woman rose from a sofa, went to the front of the booth, and peered out. "Where is Bradley?" she demanded, turning to Hideo. "He's late, and I need him to sign these manifests."

Executor Hideo shrugged. "I'm not his babysitter. Check the personnel logs. Did he take the day off?"

The woman tapped her tablet in an irritated way, as if she was stabbing the screen with a finger. "No, he's scheduled to work today, like usual. I'm paging him."

I waited with a sense of dreadful anticipation. Bradley Veneer's coworkers didn't seem to know that he was dead. I watched each of them - there were six people in the booth - and all of them only looked mad. As they muttered to each other about Bradley's faults and the way he took random time off without scheduling it, I wondered if anybody actually liked him. However, none of them seemed like the type to strangle him and throw him off the wall. They were just grumbling about a somewhat unreliable coworker.

Executor Hideo's tablet made a chiming sound. "Hold on," he said to his people. "I just got a message from the Cormorant Blade."

The booth fell silent. Every eye turned to Hideo in sudden dread.

Hideo's face changed from vaguely irritated to horrified in a fraction of a second. "Everyone," he gasped, mouth hanging open. "Bradley was found dead at the base of the wall this morning."

The New Monarchy booth broke into a babble of exclamations, shocked, disbelieving, demanding to see the message. The group gathered around Hideo, reading the message.

"As of right now," Hideo told them in a hushed voice, "we're all under investigation. None of us may leave the Tower for any reason."

"They think one of us pushed him off?" exclaimed a woman. "Don't get me wrong, I thought about it sometimes, but I'd never _do_ it."

"Hush," Hideo replied, glancing at the walkway outside. "That kind of talk might get you arrested. We'll cooperate fully with the Blade, of course. Meanwhile, we'll hold an inquiry of our own. Andrew, I want you to audit Bradley's accounts. See if he's had any unexpected cash flow lately. Lila, you take over management for now, until I can hire someone else on. And Max - where's Max?"

"He had guard duty at the north warehouse this morning," another woman said.

Hideo made a disgusted sound. "If Max did it, I will be severely disappointed. Notify him of developments and find out if he saw this coming. He and Bradley were thick as thieves."

"Right," said the woman, tapping her tablet screen.

I watched as the team generally conducted damage control. Their body language was agitated - jerky movements, running hands through hair, tugging at jackets, pulling lips, scratching noses, picking things up and setting them down over and over. My instinct was that these people were innocent. They were genuinely upset and massively inconvenienced. Despite being unpopular, Bradley Veneer seemed to have worked very hard for New Monarchy - when he wasn't slacking off.

I watched them all morning, as agents of the Cormorant Blade showed up and asked them questions. I crept closer, hiding in the canopies of the roof, and looked at the pictures of Bradley's body as they were passed around. Everyone was horrified. One of the women, Lila, sat and cried with a handkerchief pressed to her face.

One of the parts that interested me was when a Blade agent asked Hideo if Bradley had any enemies. Hideo looked at his friends and sighed. "He was never very popular," he began. "And he was serious rivals with some of Dead Orbit's people. I hate to implicate anyone, though."

"Any names?" the agent pressed. "Any leads will help this investigation."

"I saw him arguing with two men in Dead Orbit uniform last week," Hideo said unwillingly. "And he had an ... encounter ... with a Guardian in the bar yesterday."

The team murmured in shock. "You don't think a Guardian was involved?" one of the women whispered.

"Which Guardian?" the agent asked.

Hideo shook his head. "A female Hunter. Long blond hair. About this tall," he indicated his forehead. "Had a ghost in a red armored shell. Bradley bought her a drink. They got to talking politics, and pretty soon she pulled her knives on him. Security asked them both to leave."

The agent noted this down. I did, too. Guardians were trained in fighting and killing. One of them could have assassinated Bradley without blinking. I thought of my own Guardian's spark, abandoned in the wilds, and shivered a little.


	2. Chapter 2: Information theft

The questions continued, the Blade checking accounts and records - everything connected with Bradley Veneer. Late that afternoon, as fatigue was setting in and Hideo had tea and snacks brought in, this Max person arrived.

He was a youngish man with an untidy mop of fair hair, and a face that was sickly pale. He wore a red and gold uniform, like the rest of them, but his was rumpled and sweaty from standing out in the sun all day. When they told him that Bradley had been killed, he said, "What," in a tired sort of way, and sat heavily on a sofa.

The Blade agents questioned him. Max had been friends with Bradley, or at least, had been friendly enough to grab drinks after work and play a few rounds of poker. He kept dragging his hand down his face and shaking his head, as if he couldn't believe this was happening.

The agents finally let them all go around seven that night. The whole group was exhausted by then, jackets unbuttoned, hair gone messy, faces sagging. They closed the booth and scattered to their homes for the night.

I had no need of sleep, so I picked my way through the Tower's evening traffic toward Dead Orbit's corner of the hanger. As I went, I reviewed what I had learned.

Bradley Veneer had been unpopular and unreliable. He drank too much and often turned up late to work. But he oversaw the mercantile branch of New Monarchy, making sure that goods were delivered on time and vendors were kept satisfied. Without him, the team was going to have to work extra hard to cover his job.

But who would strangle him and throw his body off the City's wall? It seemed awfully extreme. Unless the guy had been embezzling or trafficking illegal goods - which, admittedly, I couldn't rule out at this point - there was no motive for someone to kill him.

The Dead Orbit part of the hanger was dark, even in the daytime. They had an enclosed office full of technicians and computers, and a small courtyard outside where their goods came and went. The lights were few and dim, placed to dramatically illuminate whoever stood near them. Everyone in Dead Orbit wore black with silver accessories. Very goth.

Dead Orbit believed that we should abandon Earth and strike out for the stars, find somewhere new and better, where the Darkness wouldn't find us. They were the remnants of the early settlers who had disagreed with the Traveler and who thought it was better to simply leave. They were constantly angling for more money to build colony ships.

Their real job, though, was managing the deep space satellites that detected enemy ship movements. They monitored all the planets and moons, providing valuable intelligence for the Vanguard. They built and modified jumpships, salvaged old tech, reverse-engineered the tech of our enemies, and in general ran everything mechanical.

There weren't many techs working in the office - just a couple who appeared to be handling night shift. Arach Jalaal, the head of Dead Orbit, stood off in a corner of the plaza, behind a stack of ship parts. Another Cormorant Blade agent was questioning him. I kept low and hid behind the ship parts.

"But that's always going on," said Jalaal. He was an Awoken man with a manicured black goatee. "There's always those kind in every organization, and we try to not let it bother us."

"But they had a disagreement?" said the agent.

"Oh yes," said Jalaal. "Quite a loud one. And there was some shoving, if I recall. But security broke it up. I questioned the ones involved - seems they were arguing about Dead Orbit's philosophy. It's controversial, I know."

"Do you think the argument may have escalated elsewhere?" said the agent.

Jalaal shrugged. "It's possible. I'll give you their names so you can talk to them. Cheyenne Centrix and Xhao Sing. They went home an hour ago."

The agent noted this down. "The Cormorant Blade appreciates your cooperation, sir."

The agent departed. Jalaal stood there for a moment, watching him go. Then he muttered, "New Monarchy activists," and went inside the office.

Nothing else was happening, so I wandered away into the Tower, thinking.

The Dead Orbit people had fought with Bradley Veneer. He seemed to pick fights everywhere he went. But that didn't necessarily mean everyone would want to murder him. There must be a deeper reason, something more personal that I didn't know yet.

I headed for the Ghost Speakeasy. If anybody would know the latest gossip, it would be the Tower ghosts. And maybe I could find out who that guardian had been who had pulled knives on Bradley Veneer.

Still mulling over the tidbits of information I overheard from Dead Orbit - Bradley seemed to get in a lot of fights about politics - I flew to a back hallway with a vent high up, near the ceiling. I flashed my scan beam at the tiny chip beside it. The vent cover clicked open. A ghost guard inside gave me a quick scan. "Come on in. We have a good crowd tonight."

"Thanks," I said, and flew inside.

After a trip down a ventilation duct about four feet long, I arrived in a narrow room like an attic. It was wasted space between two walls, and ghosts had transmatted in flooring, wall panels, and soft pillows to recline on. I counted about twenty-five ghosts hanging out, some on the pillows, some hovering in groups, talking. Two ghosts were securing a picture of somebody's Guardian to the wall. It was a candid shot of a Titan aiming down the sights of a rifle, but from the way his ghost was gushing about him, you'd have thought it was a full-blown pin-up.

One of the ghosts flew up to me, bouncing in excitement. "Zero! You made it! Did you hear about that dead human that fell off the wall?"

It was Priscilla. She had been stealing my thunder, it looked like. A few other ghosts drifted after her, curious. One of them said, "She was just telling us about how this guy was found dead."

"Yes," I said. "Bradley Veneer, with New Monarchy. He was strangled, then thrown off the wall."

The ghosts immediately gave me their attention. Several more joined the group around me. They ignored Priscilla, who twitched her shell back and forth in annoyance.

"What else?" the ghosts wanted to know. "Do they know who did it?"

"Are you investigating?"

"Do they let ghosts question suspects?"

I told them what I had observed that day, stipulating that they should keep quiet about this until we caught the killer. As I talked, something nagged at me - something I had seen. A detail I had overlooked. But I couldn't figure out what it was.

When I reached the part about the Hunter arguing with Bradley, several of the ghosts jumped. "Cheyenne," they murmured. "Her ghost was here yesterday, complaining about it."

Cheyenne Centrix - also of Dead Orbit.

"Do you think she killed him?" I asked.

"No," one of them said. "Cheyenne was mad because she got banned from the bar for a week. She didn't care about Bradley, just called him a New Monarchy stooge."

Killing someone in revenge for being banned from a bar, or disagreeing about politics, seemed awfully petty to me. But I didn't have a Guardian, so what did I know? They seemed like a lot of trouble.

Priscilla barged her way forward, knocking other ghosts aside. "I investigated, too," she said proudly. "And I'm positive I know who did it."

"Who?" we chorused.

Priscilla paused for dramatic effect. "The _Fallen_!"

The ghosts muttered and groaned.

"There's no Fallen in the Tower," someone pointed out.

"And they stab people to death," another ghost said. "They don't strangle them. Strangling is how humans assassinate each other."

"Do you have any proof?" I asked her.

Priscilla's eye darted left and right. "Well - well, no. But what about you, Zero? Do you know who did it?" She flew at me aggressively.

I backed up a few inches. "No," I replied. "But I'm still gathering the facts."

Priscilla turned to the other ghosts. "Zero is unreliable, everyone. She found her Guardian's spark and she just_ left_ it there because she's _stupid_. Don't expect her to find a killer in the Tower. She's not smart enough for that."

"Hey, now -" I began.

The other ghosts turned to me with expressions of disbelief.

"You found your Guardian and left them?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Are you one of those forever alone ghosts?"

"Where was the spark?"

"Did you flag it for other ghosts?"

"You're not stupid, are you?"

"She'd rather study _animals_!" Priscilla went on. "She hangs out at the bottom of lakes. Who does that? She'd rather scan an old concrete pipe than the graveyard right next to it. I watched her do it!"

I backed away toward the entrance tunnel. I couldn't explain my reasoning to this crowd, not with Priscilla behind them, shouting about the other dumb things I'd done while wandering the wilds.

The other ghosts followed me to the tunnel, so I had to escape up it. I fled in shame and irritation - Darkness take Priscilla! I could have learned all kinds of things from those other ghosts. Now she'd poisoned their opinion of me. I'd just have to find the killer and prove that I wasn't stupid, even if I had left my Guardian to fade in the wilds.

I flew back out into the Tower courtyard, where I parked myself in a tree for the night. I had done this for so many years, trees just seemed like natural resting places to me. It also hid me from Guardians and other ghosts. Sure, they could find me with a scan, but they'd have to be looking up here to spot me.

Priscilla's slander stung. I sat there and smoldered with embarrassment for a while. It was so tempting to just slip over the wall and back into the wilderness, return to my hunting and studying, forget all about Bradley Veneer.

But that would mean never finding out who killed him. What if I came back, years later, and found that the killer had murdered other people? And I could have stopped it? That was infinitely worse than being called names by a lot of ignorant ghosts. I might even already know the culprit, if I could figure out what kept bothering me.

So I sat there in the branches and tried to pin down the one thing I sensed I had overlooked. Something about the hubbub in the New Monarchy booth.

I reviewed my logs and daily video capture. Again, I watched the group complain about Bradley being late, then receive the news about his death. I reviewed the questioning by the Cormorant Blade.

Wait. I ran the footage backward. When the sickly young man, Max, had come in and sat on the sofa. I hadn't paid attention to him after that, because conflicts were happening elsewhere. But my video showed Max reach over to one of the New Monarchy computers, stealthily unplug an external hard drive, and slide it into his coat pocket.

I watched the footage three times. He had stolen a computer's hard drive, right there in front of his coworkers and the police. I had caught it on video and I hadn't noticed him doing it. No wonder I'd felt like I'd missed something.

I tried looking him up in the New Monarchy database, but struck the same security layer that had baffled me before. I'd just have to wait until morning and hope he showed up at work.

I closed my eye and dozed. At least here in the Tower, I wouldn't have to worry about monkeys coming after me. Traveler's Light, I hated monkeys. I'd never explore Asia again.

* * *

I awoke at dawn to find fifty-two messages from Priscilla. The headers said things like, "I'll catch the killer first!" and "You're so dumb," and "You're talking to the wrong people, I know the REAL suspects!"

She offered no actual information, only insults. I deleted her messages.

It started my day off in a bad way. I flew out of the tree, grumpy, trying to settle my shell and finding it ever so slightly uncomfortable. A few Guardians were moving about the chilly courtyard, carrying mugs of tea or coffee, talking to each other or their ghosts. I paused to watch one warlock with a book in her arms who was arguing with her ghost about a passage of philosophy. She and her ghost interpreted the passage differently, and I could tell from watching them that they were having a fine time.

My Guardian's spark had called to me. Maybe I should have resurrected them instead of leaving. Watching this kinship between Guardian and Ghost ... it made me wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake. I could be like that ghost, happily arguing with my Guardian, bonded, strong, wanted.

No.

I turned my back on the Guardians and flew to the New Monarchy area. I had made my choice to search for a different Guardian. I would probably never find one, but I would stick by my choice and force down whatever sour grapes came my way.

I arrived at the New Monarchy booth feeling very out of sorts. I hid myself in the hangings among the rafters and waited for people to arrive.

Executor Hideo arrived first, yawning and nursing a thermos of caffeine bigger than his head. He unlocked the booth's gates and turned on the computers, then sat in front of them, taking long, noisy slurps. He looked haggard, with bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept well. I couldn't blame him.

The other regulars trickled in over the next few hours. One of them was Max, the sickly hard drive thief. I watched him closely as he took a seat in front of the computer he had robbed the day before and logged in. His name was Maximilian Ross, I noticed. He wearily asked one of the others for information from Bradley Veneer's computer. They were all sharing Bradley's information, picking up his tracking and invoices for New Monarchy's goods, trying to cover his work in addition to their own.

Nobody seemed to miss the stolen hard drive.

I did a general database query on Maximilian Ross. He was a human from the Core District of the Last City, age 23, and had been working for New Monarchy for four years. Parents worked in the Core District university. Good education, good record with his employer. Clean record, kind of boring. So why had he stolen that hard drive?

I watched him all day long, as well as the others. It was a somber, dull sort of day, with everyone tired and out of sorts. Hideo let everyone go home an hour early.

I followed Max home.

He lived in an apartment down in the City, a short bus ride from the Tower lifts. It was on the fourth floor with external stairs that must have been terrifying in the snow and ice. I could have done my usual thing of zipping along behind him, but I was craftier than that. I phased myself into his backpack. He carried me all the way home, unaware that he had a stowaway.

His backpack had a laptop and several folders full of invoices in it. I glanced at them, but they were just more of the goods New Monarchy shipped. He must be planning a fun evening of getting caught up on work.

I accompanied him into his apartment. It was a tiny single room, with a bed behind a partition in the corner, and a kitchen nook in the other corner. Max sat at an equally minuscule table, took out his laptop and folders, and dropped the backpack on the floor. I was still inside it. Ouch.

I watched and waited as he made himself a frozen dinner, then ate at his desk, alone with his work. He put on music, starting with instrumental stuff, then working up to rock music to keep himself awake. He stayed up until nearly midnight, then went to bed.

As soon as he was asleep, I phased back into reality and explored his apartment. The stolen hard drive was in a tiny filing cabinet beneath the table. He hadn't bothered locking the drawer, but I couldn't open it. The drawer was also too full for me to phase inside. I could tell the hard drive was there, but I couldn't bring my sensors to bear on it.

I scanned his regular computer's hard drive, instead. Plenty of work-related stuff. Lots of music. Pictures of pretty girls. Chat logs with friends. He seemed to play a lot of games online, but his daily planner showed only work schedules. He must not get out much.

The more I read, the more I built a picture of a lonely young man who was scraping through life the best he could. Aside from the stolen hard drive, I couldn't find any dirt on him. His bank account had a couple of paychecks stashed away, and his spending was normal enough - food, bills, train fare, doctor visits.

Hm. An awful lot of doctor visits.

Before I could dig deeper, however, the bed gave a huge creak. Max sat up and yelled, "Who are you?"


	3. Chapter 3: Family

I whirled around and blinked at him for a second. My glowing blue eye seemed to light up the whole apartment. Speech fled my mind. I was caught trespassing, cracking this man's private records, and I was in trouble now.

Max had pulled a sidearm out from under his pillow and held it in both trembling hands. "Where are you?" he said in a voice raspy with terror. "Where's the Guardian?"

"I'm alone," I said.

"Like hell you are," he whispered, climbing to his knees to see over the partition into the rest of the apartment. "Ghosts are never alone. Nightstalker, right? Hiding. Invisible. They got Brad, now they'll get me!"

"I promise you," I said, "I'm alone. I don't have a Guardian."

Max didn't quite aim his gun at me, but he kept it pointed in my general direction as he fumbled for the light switch. The lights came on, filling the apartment with ordinary, blinding light.

"Stay there," Max said, his blond hair tumbled over one side of his face. He paced around the apartment, checking the bathroom and closets, then the kitchen cabinets, as if he thought a Guardian could magically fit inside them.

"I told you, I'm alone," I said.

Max stood in the middle of the room, his gun pointed at the floor, staring at me. "Then why are you here?"

"I can explain," I said. "But, please, can you put the gun down?"

Max stared at me for a moment. He had brilliant blue eyes. After a long moment, he tucked the gun in the waistband of his pajama pants. Then he walked to the computer table, pulled out the chair, and sat down facing me. "Talk," he said, his voice gone hoarse again.

I spun the back half of my shell nervously. "I'm the one who found Bradley Veneer's body. I've been investigating, trying to find out who killed him." I detailed some of the places I'd been and what I'd overheard. Max never took his eyes off me, but he slowly slumped in the chair like a balloon with the air leaking out. But he sat up again when I mentioned seeing him steal the hard drive.

"You saw that? Who else saw? Did you tell the Cormorant Blade?"

"Not yet," I replied. "I wanted to know what was on it, first. But you locked it up and I can't reach it."

He glanced at the filing cabinet down by his feet. "Good thing."

"So," I said, when he said nothing else, "why did you steal it? Is it incriminating evidence?"

Max closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I shouldn't tell you anything, ghost. For all I know, you're here on behalf of your Guardian. We all know a Guardian killed Brad."

"Do we?" I said. "He was strangled. A Guardian would have burned him, or snapped his neck, or just disintegrated the body. Throwing him off the wall is ... kind of messy, for a Guardian."

Max opened his bright blue eyes and gazed at me. "If not a Guardian," he said, "then who?"

I looked into his eyes. And it was the biggest mistake of my life.

Max's spark blazed through his eyes, bright and warm, lonesome and full of courage, and a desire to do the right thing, even if he didn't know what that was. His spark was also perilously close to the surface, something that only happened when a person was dying.

I actually screamed and whirled away from him, closing my eye. No! He couldn't be my Guardian. Not like that. Not when he was a suspect. I had just been rooting through his life, looking for criminal activity. His spark was much nicer than the one I had abandoned - no dark streaks of cruelty, no lingering taint of hate, no chill of cold and wormrot. This spark was innocent and bright, the kind Ghosts coveted most.

"What?" Max exclaimed. "Don't say you think I murdered Brad! I didn't do anything, understand?"

I slowly turned back to face him again. My own spark blazed within my core, the urge to bond with him almost choking me. My Guardian. Still alive, even. But no - I couldn't, not like that. He didn't understand. He'd hate me forever if I just bonded with no explanation. We'd begin the neural symbiosis immediately, and he had to be prepared for it. Plus, I didn't know if I wanted him. Traveler's Light, I had studied that other spark for days, which was how I found the Darkness within it. I had to have time to study Maximilian Ross.

I made a digital gasping sound. "I'm sorry, I ... don't know what happened. I'm not ... not accusing you of anything." By the Traveler, it was hard to focus when he was looking at me with his soul in his eyes. I stared over his left shoulder to avoid looking at him. "What I mean is, I'm just saying, I'm trying to follow all the leads I can. And I needed to know why you took that hard drive. It might be - be proof of embezzlement, or illegal goods, or something. I don't know why Bradley Veneer was killed. If I can find out why, I can find out who."

Max stared at me in silence for a long time. Then he glanced at the doors and windows, as if still expecting attack. "Look," he said very quietly, "if I show you that hard drive, will you keep it secret? It's got nothing to do with the murder. At least, I hope not."

I nodded. "I promise."

Max slowly reached into the filing cabinet, pulled out the little rectangular hard drive, and set it on the table. I scanned it, reading the stored data.

Money transfers. Doctor reports. Letters from family. Letters from a girl telling him she was breaking up.

I looked at Max again. "These are your personal records."

"Bradley Veneer was my uncle," Max said, wearily, as if I'd dragged it out of him. "He was paying for my treatments. I have stage five cancer. They had cures for it in the Golden Age, but modern medicine can't seem to hack it. I've kept working, but ..." He held up one hand, which was still trembling. "There's not a lot of time left. Brad was helping pay my bills, but ... but it looks like he was passing money to me under the table. You see? I know he was up to some shady stuff on the side, but I didn't ask. If that comes to light, whoever got him might come after me."

I hung there in the air, processing this. Fascinating! A family connection I hadn't seen. My mind whirled with the implications of this new information, and the shrieking anguish that my Guardian was sick and dying. I could save him, cure that cancer in a single flash of Light that would leave him well and whole. But I couldn't. Not now.

I tried to push that particular knowledge aside and focus only on the facts. "So ... you said shady stuff. Was he dealing drugs or something?"

"I don't know," Max said, spreading both hands. "I tried not to know. He hung out in the seedier City districts a lot. He'd come to work stinking like crisplas, sometimes. I know Hideo got on his case about it more than once."

I began to pace back and forth in midair. It helped me think, and it kept me from looking into Max's eyes for too long. "So, let's think. Bradley Veneer was helping you by paying for your treatments. But that money may have been coming from criminal activities. We don't have any proof, only suspicions. However, do you think somebody in the criminal element bumped him off?"

"Maybe," Max said. "Look, it's really late. Can we talk about this in the morning? Assuming you're not just going to report to your Guardian you actually have."

I displayed my holographic menu, my identification header highlighted. "Look at my ID. Unbonded."

He studied the header for a long moment. "Your name is Zero?"

"Yes."

He was looking at me again. I gazed back, seeing the pity in his spark. I shouldn't look at him, shouldn't meet those sky-blue eyes with the life shining through. His Light was so very bright - like a dying star.

"Did you name yourself Zero?" he asked gently.

I closed my hologram and looked away, breaking that glorious eye contact. "Another ghost calls me that. I just ... took it as a name. My Guardian can change my name to whatever he wants."

Max gazed at me for a long time, eyebrows drawn together in a frown. Then he shook his head a little and slowly rose from the chair. "I need to crash. Please don't have me killed overnight."

I wanted to say so many things in response to that, but the words wouldn't come. I watched him collapse into bed and fall asleep.

I studied his spark the rest of the night. I analyzed it with every tool in my arsenal. If he had Darkness buried in him, I was going to find it. Any excuse to not accept him as a Guardian.

All humans have a thread of Darkness running through their Light. It's the fatal flaw of humanity, that bent toward the selfish. We ghosts are aware of the risk when we bond - that the Darkness may grow until it wipes out the Light we once loved. Many ghosts watched it happen during the Dark Ages, when there were no rules, and we were too young to know better. We found our partners and raised them, and they became monsters. Often, the ghost became a monster, too - the neural symbiosis worked both ways. I had watched it happen, me and the other ghosts. We swore to study potential sparks, rejecting them if there was too much Darkness. But that had been centuries ago. Ghosts like Priscilla had forgotten, or never made the pledge.

I gazed into Max's soul and yes, the thread of Darkness was there. But he also was trying to follow the teachings of the Light. I saw the struggles, the loneliness and fear that came with his disease. He was angry and sad. Losing his girlfriend had left a wound inside him. But he was persevering, trying to go on living, even as death's shadow grew ever longer.

Traveler's Light, I was falling for him quick and hard. I circled the apartment restlessly. What should I do? I couldn't leave him. Not now that I had found him, after seven centuries of being alone. All that time searching, and he hadn't been born yet. How might the Light affect him? Would he be a brawling Titan in heavy armor? A quick-footed Hunter who loved the wilderness? An intelligent warlock who sought to plumb the mysteries of the Light, itself? And I would be his Ghost, growing and changing along with him.

I flew into the bathroom and studied my reflection in the mirror. My shell was old and scratched. I had kept it as clean as I could by dunking myself in lakes and ponds, which had added spots of rust. I needed a new shell. I tallied up my stored glimmer - I'd collected quite a lot in the ruined cities, and by trailing Guardians as they fought and killed the Fallen - and figured I had enough.

I still had that tiny diamond.

My daydreams of finding my Guardian came to a screeching halt. How did the diamond fit into Bradley Veneer's murder? Or was it related at all?

I returned to circling the apartment as morning approached. Bradley had been taking care of his nephew, which was nice of him. Seemed like the only nice thing he'd ever done. At the same time, it made me wonder if there was some ulterior motive - sinking dirty money into doctor's bills or something. Nobody else had gotten along with Bradley Veneer. Maybe the killer wore a diamond-studded belt or something. There had to have been a struggle, there on the top of the wall. People don't stand there passively while being strangled. The diamond must have been knocked loose then.

Max slept until nearly nine o'clock. I waited for him, knowing it was my fault that he'd been up late. When he awoke, he lay there looking at me for a long moment. I gazed back, looking straight into his soul, trying to spot any hidden twists of cruelty or hate. All I saw was crushing loneliness.

"Doesn't your family care that you're sick?" I asked him.

Max startled a little and sat up. "How'd you know what I was thinking about?"

"I didn't," I said, looking away. "You just looked lonely."

He rested his elbows on his knees and tilted his head back and forth, popping his neck. "They care. But they can't babysit me. I go over there on holidays, but ... it's not like they can do anything. My folks don't like me very much, anyway."

"But your uncle did."

Max smiled with half his face. "Yeah. He'd looked out for me since I was a kid." He drew a breath and straightened. "So, anyway, what are you still doing here? Did you watch me sleep?"

"Yes," I replied, sudden humor rising in me. "I'm practicing being a creeper."

Max almost laughed, but held it in, not sure whether I was kidding or not. I emoted a smile to make sure he understood.

Max climbed out of bed, grinning. "Well, don't creep on me while I shower. In fact, why are you still here? Why don't you go be a detective somewhere else?"

"Well, I ..." I shifted in midair, adjusting my shell a little. I wanted to fly to him and ruffle that mop of hair that constantly hung in his eyes. But I was half-afraid that if I moved too close to him, I'd be overcome with the urge to bond to his spark and heal him. "I was hoping we could investigate together, as a team. You could be in danger, and Bradley was your uncle. You have a bigger stake in this than I do."

Max stood there, gazing at me, frowning. He had to lean against the kitchen counter to steady himself. After a moment, he said, "You have a point. All right. I'll have to teach you some manners, though. Don't spy on people while they're sleeping or showering. It's rude."

"All right," I said, emoting another smile. "But what about murder suspects?"

"All bets are off, in that case," Max said, picking up his work uniform from where he'd tossed it over a chair. "And I'm not a suspect. So don't follow me." He vanished into the bathroom with a distrustful look at me.

I left him alone and flew around, watching the sun rise outside, and checking my messages.

I had another pile from Priscilla. She had talked to Xhao Sing from Dead Orbit. "He said I was the first ghost he had talked to, meaning you haven't talked to him, meaning I know something you don't, ha ha!"

Buried in her nonsense was a message from Bud, ghost of Detective Paul Johansson. "Hey Zero. We got the results of the post mortem back. Drop by the office and we'll fill each other in."

At least he didn't call me stupid. It would be interesting to see what they found, because then we'd know the time of death and could build a picture of what happened when.

I was pondering this when Max emerged from the shower, his hair neatly brushed to one side in a smooth curve. "Still here?" he said, buttoning his uniform's jacket.

"Yes, of course," I said. "Detective Johansson has invited me back to his office for the results of the post mortem exam. We'll find out the exact time of death."

Max looked a little queasy. "You go. I need to get to work. I'm already an hour late, and Hideo is going to chew my butt for it."

He grabbed a sandwich, jammed his laptop and folders into his backpack, then headed out the door. I took up a ghost's position at his left shoulder.

Max protested. "Don't hang out right there! People will think I'm a Guardian!"

"Oh, right," I said, feeling silly. He wasn't my Guardian yet. I phased into his backpack, instead.

As I rode along, I considered just hanging around him until he died, then resurrecting him as my Guardian. But that seemed sort of ghoulish. It would remove his free will from the equation, and he would return with no memory of me. I didn't want to force him to be my Guardian, not when he had a choice. Most Guardians didn't get a choice. But I liked Maximilian Ross. And he deserved to know my intent before I up and bonded to him forever.

We parted ways at the Tower. Max dashed off to work, while I flew to the Cormorant Blade office.

Last time, only Paul Johansson had been there. Today, the other desks were occupied, with other detectives working on different cases. Paul was as vast as ever, his double chin bulging over his collar as he leaned over his desk, reading a report. He looked up as I flew to his desk. His face split in a grin. "Hello, Zero! Glad you could make it. Got anything for me?"

"Not much," I replied. "I've hung around the New Monarchy and Dead Orbit people, and I don't think any of them killed Bradley Veneer. They were too shocked."

Paul listened and nodded. "I'll have you give me more details later. For now, take a look at this post mortem." He turned the paper around and slid it toward me.

I read it with interest. As it turns out, it's fairly easy to calculate the time of death in a human body. When a human dies, the muscles stiffen in a condition called rigor mortis. This persists for twenty-four hours. When I had found Bradley, his corpse was still in the throes of rigor mortis. The doctor had analyzed various factors like blood separation, and estimated that Bradley had died about three o'clock in the morning. I had found him at about seven, so he had been dead about four hours.

If I had only happened by a little sooner, I might have seen him toppling off the wall, striking the buttresses on the way down ...

The cause of death was definitely strangulation. The doctor said that the murder weapon had been a pair of hands, because the fingerprints were clearly visible in the bruising on the neck. A note had been jotted in the margin that the hands were quite large, so to look for suspects six feet tall or larger.

"That's a good clue," I said, shining my scan beam on the note.

"I know," Paul replied, retrieving the report and tucking it into a file. "So, we're looking for a suspect on the tall side who had beef with Bradley Veneer. See anybody matching that description?"

Nobody in New Monarchy or Dead Orbit had been that tall. Max was about 5'6, and with his cancer, I doubted he was strong enough to strangle his uncle and throw him off the wall.

I told Paul my observations, leaving out the stolen hard drive. But I did finally bring up the diamond.

I transmatted the gem onto his desk. "I found this in the spot where Bradley was tossed off the wall. I don't know if it's related, but it might be a clue."

Paul picked up the diamond with a pair of tweezers and examined it closely. He held it up for his ghost to study, too. "Now this is an interesting find. We don't have a lot of diamonds kicking around the Tower. If the killer turns out to have a ring that's missing a stone, so much the better." He dropped the diamond into a labeled bag and held it up to his ghost. "Bud, take this over to forensics. See if we can get a partial print." Bud transmatted the bag into memory and flew off.

Paul turned back to me, pulling out a notepad. "All right, Zero, take it from the top. Tell me names, times, reactions, everything."

I went through it all again, displaying snapshots. Paul wrote everything down, his expression intent and shrewd. I told him the names of the Dead Orbit people, including Guardian Cheyenne, whom Bradley had gotten banned from the bar. Then I told him what Max had told me, about Bradley being involved in criminal activities in the City.

"Really, now," Paul said. "I'd like to ask this Maximilian Ross a few more questions. Bring him by the office when he gets off work, will you? Sounds like he might have a few good leads."

"Will do," I agreed. "Any ideas where to look next?"

"Look out for jewelry," Paul told me. "Anything missing a stone. There's plenty of tall people around, but if we can match a tall suspect with the diamond, then we'll be in business."


	4. Chapter 4: Caught

I was ridiculously happy to fly back to the New Monarchy booth and see Max bent over a computer inside. I parked myself on a rafter and gazed down at him, happy just to be in his presence. He glanced at me and waved.

Lila, an older, motherly woman who was working next to him, looked up and saw me. "What ghost is that?"

"A single one that's been following me around," Max replied. "She's investigating Veneer's death."

Lila laughed. "A Ghost detective? Now I've heard everything."

I sat there and watched Max, feeling more at home than I ever had in my life before. My first Guardian hadn't been right for me, but this one ... he was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I watched his spark glimmer in his face and hands. It was too close to the surface because of his illness, but it made him stand out among everyone else.

I watched him lean back in his chair and rest his head against it, closing his eyes. There was that unwell weariness again, the tell-tale signs of the cancer at work. If only I could heal him! I'd mend him in a second, and he'd have his life back. But he'd be a Guardian, too - immortal, ageless, blessed with the Light, in order to battle our enemies. Not everyone wanted that. But surely he would, wouldn't he? The alternative was a slow, painful death.

I lurked there in the rafters, watching Max all afternoon, daydreaming about the adventures we might have together, and of seeing him use the Light.

As evening came, everyone closed up shop for the night. Max was so tired, it took him two tries to climb out of his chair. He packed up his laptop, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and almost dropped it.

"Here, let me help you," Lila said. She fussed over Max as she helped him get the straps on. She walked with him out of the booth and toward the Tower lift, asking him softly about his cancer's progress. I flew along nearby, trying to be unobtrusive.

It was dusk, and a chilly breeze was blowing, despite it being June. Most people had gone home or were at dinner, so the plaza didn't have a lot of people in it as we crossed.

Lila wore a diamond-studded bracelet on her left wrist. As we walked along, I kept trying to get a good look at it, to see if it was missing a stone. This was how I saw a figure unfold itself from behind a tree as we passed. Something about the stealthy, predatory way it moved sent fear blasting through me. I disappeared into phase and cried, "Watch out!"

Lila and Max looked up just as the figure swooped at them. It was a tall person in a long cloak that hid its face. It grabbed Lila's wrist and slashed the bracelet free with a knife, leaving a deep cut in her arm. She screamed. Max tried to grab the thief's cloak, but the thief wrenched away and dashed across the plaza, disappearing into the shopping district.

Lila held up her bleeding wrist, sucking in breath through her teeth. "I'll get to medical. It's okay."

Max darted after the thief, and I followed him. I wasn't sure how much strength he'd have if things came to a fight, but maybe he could slow the thief down.

The trouble was, in the few seconds we had hesitated, the thief had disappeared. We plunged into the shopping district and found the Tower's dinner rush. People were milling about everywhere, waiting in line at the shops, or sitting at little tables with their food. Plenty of people wore cloaks with hoods. The thief could be sitting right in front of us and we'd never see him.

Max asked a few people if they'd seen a person in a cloak with a knife run by. Everyone shrugged and shook their heads. One Hunter lifted his cloak aside to display the knives at his belt. "You just described one third of all Guardians, kid."

Max leaned against a pillar for a moment, breathing heavily. I floated up beside him. "I'm sorry," I told him. "I should have scanned them or something."

"It happened too fast," Max panted. "So, now we have a killer and a thief at large." He hoisted his backpack and slowly climbed the stairs back into the Tower.

"Or they're the same person," I said, as we left the hubbub behind and entered the quiet plaza. "Did you see how tall that guy was? We're supposed to look out for someone tall."

"We are?"

I filled Max in on the post mortem report. He sat on a bench to catch his breath and listened. When I finished, he said, "Should I report this to the Cormorant Blade?"

"Detective Johansson did want to talk to you," I said. "It's only up these stairs, over here."

Max groaned. He dragged himself to his feet and followed me up the stairs. "I should go check on Lila. But I don't know if I have the strength."

"I can check," I told him. I sent a query to the medical database. After a moment, I found the data. "She's been admitted and is having her arm treated. The wound is registered here as fairly minor."

"Good," Max said.

The other detectives had gone home, and only Paul Johansson was in the Cormorant Blade office, eating dinner at his desk. I wondered if he ever left that chair. Max sniffed the air longingly and eyed the plate of greasy noodles and fried chicken.

"Hey, it's Zero, again," Paul said, wiping his mouth on a napkin. His gaze swung from me to my companion. "Are you Maximilian Ross? Nephew to the deceased?"

"That's me," Max said, shaking Paul's hand across the desk. Max dropped into a nearby chair and kind of melted into the cushions, closing his eyes for a moment.

"We were just attacked," I told Paul. "By a diamond thief." I described the encounter. Paul's smile vanished. He whipped out a notepad and a pen. His ghost, Bud, opened his shell in order to record my account. I noticed that the bottom of Bud's shell was piled with sliced brownies. I glanced at Max's pale face and wondered if I could carry snacks inside my shell.

When I finished my account, Paul read back over his notes for a moment in silence. Max sighed and I heard his stomach growl.

"Interesting," Paul said. "I'll notify the Vanguard of this new development. We have no evidence that the thief and the killer are the same person, but the presence of diamonds in both cases seems significant. Now." He turned his attention to Max. "Tell me everything you know about your uncle's criminal habits."

Max told Paul what he had told me, leaving out the cancer and money for treatments. He also mentioned the name of a bar in the City that Bradley had frequented, the Soggy Vandal.

"I don't know anything else, though," Max said. "You could ask my mom. She knew more about my uncle than I did, but she didn't really keep close tabs." He gave Paul his mother's phone numbers.

"Thank you," Paul said, writing this down. "This may speed up the investigation significantly."

He dismissed us. Max dragged himself to his feet and made it to the hallway outside, where he sagged against the wall.

I flew down beside him anxiously, examining his colorless face. His spark was just below the surface, threatening to break loose and leave his body. Again, I wanted to bond to him so badly that I had to back away.

"I don't know how I'm going to get home, Zero," he whispered. "I'm so tired."

"Would you mind a transmat?" I said. "Your apartment is within network coverage."

He gave me a frightened look. In his exhausted state, his eyes seemed enormous, the dark lashes too long. "I thought only Guardians could survive a transmat."

"Transmats don't hurt anyone," I said gently. "They transfer your data from place to place. All matter is data. It feels weird, but it won't hurt. It'll be faster than walking."

After a moment, Max slowly nodded. "Do it. I can't face waiting at the bus stop."

I synced to the network and tagged Max properly. I entered the coordinates for his living room. Then I transmatted him from the Tower to the apartment, which took two seconds. I transmatted myself afterward.

Max stood in the middle of his apartment, looking dazed. "That was weird," he remarked as I appeared. Then he tottered to his bed and fell into it.

I followed after him, spinning my shell anxiously. "Max? Are you all right?"

He lay with his face mashed into his pillow, eyes closed. He cracked an eyelid to look at me, but didn't respond. In a moment he was asleep.

I floated there, doing the ghost equivalent of wringing my hands. He was tired and hungry, and he shouldn't sleep on an empty stomach like that. Not if he wanted to function at work tomorrow.

After a moment's hesitation, I phased through the door and set out into the City to order him a meal.

If Max was going to be my Guardian, then I needed to get used to taking care of him. Food didn't cost much, and I had plenty of glimmer. If only he'd let me bond to him and cure his cancer ... I'd have to muster the nerve to ask him.

Fortunately, the apartment building was only a few blocks from a commercial district with lots of little restaurants. I ordered take-out and transmatted it straight to Max's apartment. I could have carried it in my memory storage, but storage does funny things to heat dispersion. The food would be cold when I produced it.

I returned to find the take-out bag in the middle of the floor. I transmatted it to the table, instead, then flew to Max. He was asleep in the same position, his face still mashed into the pillow.

I ruffled his hair, as I'd been longing to do for days. It whispered softly against my shell. "Wake up, handsome. I brought you dinner."

It took a long time to rouse him. He'd gone straight into deep slumber, exhausted from illness and lack of sleep. When he finally stirred and sat up, he blinked at me for a while without seeming to understand what was happening. It wasn't until I transmatted the bag of hot food into his lap did he wake up and take notice.

"Where'd this come from?" he asked, digging into the bag and pulling out a box of fried chicken and chow mien.

"Chung's Chinese Grill," I replied. "I tried to match what Paul was eating. Do you like it?"

Max blinked at me. "You bought me dinner? But ... you're only a ghost."

"I have my own glimmer," I said smugly. "I just transmatted the food here. People don't care what you look like, as long as you pay."

Max picked at the noodles, then seemed to discover his appetite. He wolfed the food, making little moans of pleasure. "This is the first food that's tasted good in weeks. It's the cancer treatments. The drugs make me not want to eat."

"I'm sorry," I said, not sure how to respond to that.

Max didn't say anything else for a while, too busy stuffing himself. Some of the peaky look left his face. He finally finished every last scrap and set the empty containers on the floor beside his bed. He retrieved a glass of water and nursed it, sitting on his bed with his back against the wall.

"Are you staying the night, again?" he asked me.

I nodded. "It's nicer here than sleeping in a tree."

Max grinned a little. "Wake me up at seven, if I'm not awake. I have to hit the doctor before work."

I looked at the thinness of his face and wrists, the way his eyes seemed too large for his face, the transparent look to him that let his spark shine through. "Is it helping?" I asked softly.

Max shrugged one shoulder. "I mean ... stage five. They said there wouldn't be any pain until right at the end, when my body shuts down. I'm just so tired. The drugs are slowing it down, giving me more time. It's in my lymph system, so ... there's not much more they can do."

Now was the time to bring up the Guardian thing. I adjusted my segments, trying to think of how to open the subject. "What would happen if ... if you came back as a Guardian?"

Max frowned. "I wouldn't really be me, would I? Guardians come back with no memories. I don't want that. I'd just be ... a shell walking around with my old face."

Any desire I had to ask him to be my Guardian shriveled up and died. He was right - that's what would happen. And I'd be the one at fault. I was the one responsible for raising my Guardian, and a ghost had no control over what memories they came back with, if any. That depended on their corpse's condition and the Light.

Max squinted at me, as if trying to solve a puzzle. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," I said, looking away.

He laughed a little. "You're not following me around to turn me into your Guardian, are you?"

I nearly yelped aloud. "No! No. Of course not. That's ridiculous. I like you, that's all. And you're helping me work on this case. I just ... wanted a friend. That's all. Not a Guardian."

"Uh-huh." Max gave me that look again, trying to figure me out. "Anyway, I'm going to sleep now. Where will you sleep?"

I glanced around his apartment, looking for any spots where I might hide. But before I could pick one, Max said, "Here." He lifted one of his pillows and set it to one side, against the wall, beside his own. "Ghosts like beds, don't they? Just sleep right here. I'll bet it's nicer than a tree. You can be my night light."

I slowly flew to the pillow and settled down on it. It was soft and comfortable, all right. I watched Max turn off the light and lie down. He gazed at my glowing blue eye for a while. His eyes drifted closed, and soon he was snoring.

He couldn't know that my heart was breaking. He didn't want to be a Guardian. I shouldn't be here, this close to the man I had fallen for so hard, if he didn't want that. Didn't want me. But then, why offer me the pillow? I was so confused. Maybe if I explained about bonding to him while he was still alive, how his memories would stay the same ... Maybe he wouldn't reject it so hard. Maybe he'd come around, if only there was time. Blast his cancer to the Darkness.

I stealthily traced a healing beam up and down his body. It wouldn't do much, without knowledge of my Guardian's body to the atomic level, but I had heard of ghosts who could mend small wounds. Maybe my Light would ease his symptoms a little.

Sleep was in short supply that night, because Max had to get up and be horribly sick from eating too much. I sat on the pillow and tormented myself with guilt. The healing beam must not have worked, after all. Whenever he dozed, I tried to heal him again.

All told, Max got about five hours of sleep that night. He was gray and haggard when I woke him up for his doctor's appointment.

* * *

"Ghosts aren't allowed in the exam rooms," he told me as we crossed the parking lot to the cancer hospital's towering white edifice. We were directly under the Traveler, there, and the ambient Light warmed me. It didn't make me feel any better, though.

"I'll stay in the waiting room," I assured Max. "And I'm sorry about last night."

He gave me a sideways look, and his lips quirked in a smile. "For dinner? Or the Guardian thing?"

"Both."

"Don't worry about it," he said lightly. "I knew I'd get sick and I still pigged out. As for the Guardian thing ... you're a ghost. It's what you do. It's not your fault that not everybody is cut out for it."

_But you are_, I wanted to say. _You're perfect._

We entered the waiting room. I hid myself in an artificial tree in the corner. Max waited about two minutes, then was ushered deeper into the hospital's sanctum.

I had been so out of sorts that morning, I hadn't checked my messages. Not that I wanted to, with Priscilla harassing me. Sure enough, she had left sixty-six messages claiming she knew more about the killer than I did. Buried in her messages was one that puzzled me.

"The killer likes jewels, so you'd better watch out, Zero."

How had she figured that out? Was she actually investigating?

Unsettled, I looked through the rest of my messages. I found one from a ghost I didn't know, named Athena. "Hello, Zero. My Guardian is Cheyenne, who had a fight with that dead man, Bradley Veneer. She didn't kill him, honest. But the Cormorant Blade came knocking last night, and we couldn't actually prove we weren't on the wall the night of the murder. Because we were. But I can't tell you any more than that. Please agree to meet with us today sometime. If you're investigating this case, maybe you can help keep my Guardian from being exiled."

Now that was interesting and sobering. The Blade thought there was enough evidence against this Guardian that her ghost was afraid of being exiled? What had they been doing on the wall that night?

I waited for Max and thought and thought. Clearing away the assumptions, the facts were:

Bradley Veneer was strangled to death at three o'clock in the morning and thrown off the wall.

A diamond was dropped on top of the wall in the same spot. But that might have happened at any time, not necessarily at the time of the murder.

Bradley Veneer had supposedly been involved in unsavory activities, but I had no details or proof.

There was a diamond thief at large in the Tower - a big person in a cloak who cut jewelry off people with a knife. The same person who had killed Bradley Veneer? Or a different person?

Max had been receiving money for treatments from Bradley Veneer. And these treatments were expensive. This would probably be his last one.

A Guardian named Cheyenne, affiliated with Dead Orbit, was under enough suspicion that her ghost feared that they'd be exiled.

Priscilla might be actually onto something.

That last note grated on me the worst - that my sister ghost might actually be figuring things out. If she cracked this case before me, she'd really rub the _stupid_ label in my optic.

I ran down the list of other names I'd heard tossed around, but none of them had motive or opportunity. It was frustrating, because I still didn't _know_ enough. Maybe I'd go out to that bar, the Soggy Vandal, and see what I could learn.

I was still pondering when Max returned, looking a little more cheerful. I flew to him and hovered over his shoulder as he walked out into the parking lot.

"Well?" I said.

"They said it's a minor miracle," Max replied. "The cancer has dropped to stage four. It must be responding to that last treatment. They're changing me to a different plan, since Brad's payments have dried up. The doctor said I might live a year, now, maybe two."

Or maybe it had been those healing beams last night. My heart hurt. I couldn't tell him that, could I? So much hope filled his eyes. He even walked with a little more energy. His spark didn't blaze through his skin quite as brightly, meaning he wasn't quite as close to death as he had been.

"Are you going to work, then?" I ventured.

"Have to," Max replied. "If I'm going to live, I can't let my bills lapse, can I?" He grinned at me. "Looks like you won't be scavenging me out of a coffin just yet."

I tried to laugh, but it made me want to cry instead.

We rode a monorail back across town to the Tower. When we stepped off the lift, the first thing we noticed were the extra Redjacks everywhere. Redjacks were military robots with armor and weapons. They were posted on every corner and stairway, watching the morning foot traffic with cautious red eyes.

"That's new," I said.

"No kidding," Max muttered, gazing at a robot as we passed. "The Vanguard's really beefing up security. Good thing, too."

As we reached the New Monarchy booth with its crimson hangings and plush sofas, Executor Hideo stepped out to meet us. "Ah, Max, glad to see you. Step this way, please, I need a word." Hideo gave me a look. "You have a ghost?"

"She's not mine," Max replied. "She's a detective."

"Ah," Hideo replied, frowning. "Right. Well, this concerns her, too."

We followed Hideo to one side, over by the pallets of goods. When we were out of earshot of the others, Hideo faced us, arms folded.

"As you know," he said, "I ordered an audit of Bradley Veneer's accounts. His death casts a shadow across New Monarchy's reputation, and we cannot afford to have our reputation tarnished. Too many people rely on us."

Max nodded. I ticked my shell right, then left. Why bring us way over here to talk about this? This was not going a direction I liked.

Hideo went on, "Yesterday, the initial report came in. Bradley Veneer was using New Monarchy shipments to smuggle substantial amounts of illegal ether into the City. He scattered the profits across multiple accounts, which we are still tracking down. However, one of the beneficiaries of his wealth was his nephew. Maximilian Ross."

Now I really did not like where this was going. Ether was a substance used by the Fallen to help their bodies grow, produced by their Servitors. It was toxic to humans and Guardians, but did produce a high in small doses. It was also used to create crysplas, a street drug.

Max stammered, "Wh-what?"

Executor Hideo's eyes narrowed. "It appears that you were collaborating with your uncle to smuggle illicit goods to dealers in the City."

"I wasn't!" Max burst out. "I didn't know a thing about what he did! All I knew was that he was helping me out!"

Hideo nodded, his face gone hard as stone. "Right. Well. I've reported this to the Cormorant Blade, and ... ah, here they come, now."

We turned. Four agents in black uniforms were approaching, led by Paul Johansson. He walked with the rolling gait of a heavy man, but he also moved in an easy, controlled way that spoke of physical power. For the first time, I wondered uneasily what class of Guardian he actually was.

"Hello, Executor," Paul said. "Hello, Max. Hello, Zero." He walked up to us and looked apologetic. "I see Hideo already told you the allegations?"

"Yes," Max replied, his voice shaking. "It's not true. I had no idea what Uncle Brad was up to."

"Be that as it may," Paul said, "we still have to take you in. Questioning, all that. I apologize." He glanced at me. "Do you have any evidence to exonerate him?"

Max gave me a pleading look, his untidy hair hanging in his eyes. It tore my heart to have to let him down.

"Not yet," I told them both. "But I will."

Seeing my future Guardian led away in handcuffs did something to me. My very Light began to snarl. Max was just starting to feel better, and now this happened. And I was going to prove he had nothing to do with his uncle's nonsense.

I followed along to see where they took Max. They put him in a holding cell behind the Cormorant Blade office. I watched just long enough to make sure he was comfortable, then I took off. I had facts to gather.

And the first thing I planned to do was talk to Guardian Cheyenne.


	5. Chapter 5: Evidence

I found Cheyenne high up on the Tower roof, where the Hunters liked to hang out in fair weather. She was sitting on a ledge, wrapped in her cloak, her ghost floating beside her. They looked up as I approached.

"Hello," said her ghost, Athena. "Nice to meet you, Zero." Her tone was guarded, cautious.

"Hello," I replied, trying not to be nervous. Max was depending on me, and I wasn't afraid of Guardians and their bonded ghosts. "You said you needed to talk?"

"Yes," said Cheyenne, pushing back her hood. She had fair skin and long blond hair. I noticed uneasily that she would be quite tall while standing. "We're in trouble, Zero. I hear you've been investigating that murder on the wall?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "And the mugging last night."

Cheyenne nodded. "Yes, well. I was on the wall the night of the murder. And I ... I can't say why. But the Cormorant Blade has me on their list of suspects because of my argument with Bradley Veneer in the bar."

"Did you kill him, then?" I asked.

"No!" she exclaimed. "But I've been tracking the one who did."

"Really!" I dipped in midair. "Who is it? Someone tall?"

"I can't say, yet," Cheyenne replied. "They're not living anywhere in the Tower. I'm afraid they're camped out in the access tunnels deep in the wall somewhere. I've been using all my skills to hunt them. But it leaves me no alibi. I was hunting the night of the murder."

"Did you see it happen?" I asked.

Cheyenne shook her head. "I was exploring the ducts beneath the Tower when it happened. Nobody saw me, and I have no records of where we were. But because of that stupid bar fight, the Cormorant Blade think I have motive. I can't prove I didn't have opportunity. That leaves means, and ..." She gestured to herself. "I'm a Guardian. We specialize in killing."

"By strangling?" I asked.

Cheyenne and her ghost gave each other a long, expressive look. They must be communicating through their bond. I watched and suddenly wished I could talk to Max that way. Light, I wished it with my whole core.

Both of them blinked at the same time. Then they turned to me. Cheyenne said, "No, I don't strangle enemies. It takes too long. But now I have stronger suspicions." She drew a deep breath and let it out. "If you could find out why this killer is in the Tower, and why they killed Veneer, it would solve everything. He's the only person dead, but others have been robbed - that New Monarchy woman and a man from Dead Orbit. The thief ripped a silver pendant right off his neck."

I hadn't known about the second theft. "When was this?"

"Last night, about two hours after the first theft. It's why they brought in the Redjacks. The Vanguard are angry."

I imagined so, with crime happening right inside their sanctum.

I nodded. "If I can learn more about Bradley Veneer, I might find out why he was killed. He was dealing in illegal ether shipments."

"Ether!" Cheyenne gasped, turning to her ghost. They communicated silently again, gazing into each other's eyes.

Cheyenne leaped to her feet. "I have to go. Find out all you can, Zero! More innocent lives depend on it!" She dashed away across the roof and down a recessed staircase.

I gazed after her, confused and troubled. What did she know that she wasn't saying? And what did I do now? Check out the Soggy Vandal? At that moment I missed Max terribly. He'd know what to do next. Maybe.

I was querying the Vanguard database for City maps, when a voice said, "Well, that was fun."

I looked around. Priscilla emerged from under the roof's eaves and flew up to me, spinning her shell. "You know why that Hunter ran away? Because she's the killer. She was right in front of you, Zero."

She'd listened in on the whole thing, the sneak. Had that been how she'd been investigating? Just following me around?

"I don't think she is," I replied, trying to control my temper. "I think we're getting close, though. I need to think." I turned away, hoping she'd get the message.

"You?" Priscilla laughed. "Think? I didn't know you knew how. Leave all the thinking to your sister, Zero. Like this. Where would Bradley Veneer hide his plotting? In his house. Where is his house? I know. And I've been there."

I spun to stare at her. "You have? Where is it?"

Priss laughed. "You'd never find it, Zero. You're terrible with directions. But I can tell you that I went through Veneer's papers. I'm the one who found out that your precious Max was taking dirty money. New Monarchy was very interested to learn that."

Rage burned through me until I could barely see. "You - you reported Max-"

"Yes," Priscilla said, "that boy you're pretending is your Guardian. I've seen you following him around. Well, he's a criminal. Sorry to break it to you."

She was the reason Max was in that jail cell. Her and her eavesdropping and meddling. Again, I saw Max being led away in handcuffs, head down and shoulders slumped.

I swooped at Priscilla and tried to knock her out of the air. She dodged and tried to hit me. "That got you, didn't it?" she crowed. We zipped around and around each other, feinting, thrusting our shells at each other, moving quicker than the eye could follow. She struck my top segment and bent it. I followed up by opening my shell suddenly, knocking her backward. She hit the wall and careened downward, out of control, to disappear into a bush.

A passing woman glanced into the bush, then scooped Priscilla out with a cry. "Are you all right, poor thing?"

I saw Priscilla's eye flicker on in the woman's cupped hands. She looked up at me balefully. "I think I'm all right. That other ghost up there attacked me for no reason."

Time to make my escape. I zipped across the Tower courtyard and down the lift. Behind me, the woman fussed over Priscilla, saying something about taking her to ghost repair.

I was the one with the bent shell. No matter how often I spun and settled it, I couldn't get my topmost segment to sit properly against my core. As I rode the lift downward, my temper began to cool. I'd let Priscilla bait me, and now I'd be in trouble for hurting a fellow ghost. I glanced warily up at the Traveler. The Vanguard might reprimand me, if Priscilla was really hurt. The Traveler had been asleep for years, and I didn't think it would do anything. Well. I hoped. I'd been a bad ghost.

At that moment, all I wanted to do was creep into Max's arms and hide my eye against his shirt. Priscilla had put him behind bars, and it was probably my fault. Well, I'd find Veneer's home, and the Soggy Vandal bar, too. And I'd come back with evidence of the real killer.

* * *

Bradley Veneer, as it turned out, lived in a penthouse on the top floor of a high rise. I only found it because it was across the street from the Soggy Vandal, which turned out to be an upscale bar and nightclub. I'd been expecting something sleazy.

I entered the Soggy Vandal and found myself in a dimly-lit entry room where a bouncer checked identification before letting people onto the dance floor beyond. It was early afternoon and there weren't many people around. The music was turned down. The few patrons there were seated at the bar at the far end of the dance floor, which apparently served lunch. I spotted bowls of crisps and large sandwiches on people's plates. Not exactly what I expected.

I flew high, along the vaulted ceiling. It was all curves designed to help with the acoustics, and racks and racks of lights. Plenty of cover for a ghost. I sneaked along until I was right above the bar. The bartender was chatting to the customers as he built another sandwich behind the counter. The glass case behind him held cups and bottles of every shape and color. They probably saw a lot of traffic in the evenings.

I listened to the chatter for a few minutes. The lunch patrons were deep in the technicalities of an upcoming Crucible match, talking players, strategies, and some team that had fired their manager. I hadn't followed the Crucible in years, and none of the names sounded familiar.

I waited as the patrons finished their lunches and trickled out, one by one. At last, about three o'clock, there was a lull. The bartender sat on a stool and watched a small video screen showing a Crucible match.

I flew down and floated above one of the empty bar stools. "Excuse me."

The bartender looked around, saw me, and jumped. "Where'd you come from?"

"I came in the door," I said, spinning my crooked shell. "I had a question or two, if you don't mind."

The bartender was a middle-aged fellow with a shaved head, probably to avoid wearing a hair net. The roundness of his face and the slant of his eyes made me think he was of Korean descent. He squinted at me, then looked around the empty club. "Where's your Guardian?"

"I don't have one," I replied. "Do you know who Bradley Veneer was?"

The man's face lost all expression. He turned to face the video screen. "I got nothing to say to you."

"He's dead," I said.

The bartender slowly turned to look at me. He still wore that poker face expression. "Dead?"

"Dead. I'm trying to find out how he got that way."

The bartender laughed. He actually laughed and slapped his thigh. "Don't that beat all." He pointed at me. "You won't get anything out of me, ghosty. You want answers, you raid his penthouse across the road. Leave me and my club out of it, all right? We weren't involved."

"But you know what went on," I said.

The man shrugged. "You hear a lot of scuttlebutt in this job. Doesn't mean I'll sing. The less notice the Cormorant Blade takes of this place, the better. Now shoo, ghosty. Across the street, top floor, can't miss it."

I shooed. And just in time, because the door was open as I left, the evening crowd beginning to stream in, greeting each other and laughing.

So, Bradley Veneer had hung out at the club. Probably made a lot of connections there - or maybe his dealers found new customers, spiking drinks with crysplas. Either way, the bartender knew about it. But why had he laughed?

That puzzled me the most. It hadn't been a shocked laugh. It had been like a reaction to a joke. An honest guffaw. If this bartender knew that Veneer had been a smuggler, why would he laugh to hear of him dead? Had he hated him? But no, it hadn't been an angry or hateful laugh. I couldn't figure it out.

I flew up the side of the high rise, past fancy balconies featuring expensive deck furniture. This whole building must cater to the upper class. When I reached the penthouse at the top, I phased cautiously through a window.

My worries about entering the wrong apartment were groundless. There was only one penthouse on the top floor, and it was huge. White carpet. Black furniture. Granite countertops and expensive appliances in the kitchen. A massive entertainment system in the living room. The carpet had the zigzag marks of being recently vacuumed - Veneer probably had housekeeping. Hopefully they hadn't wiped out the evidence I needed.

I began a complete sweep of the apartment, going room by room, checking every cabinet and drawer. I didn't sense any Darkness here, but then, Darkness tended to linger around living beings, not places that had been empty for days.

I found nothing of interest until I reached the master bedroom. It was tidy, too, the bed perfectly made, like a hotel room. I examined the bedside tables, the dresser, the bed, and found nothing. Then I tried the closet.

The closet door was locked. I picked up nothing living or threatening inside, so I phased through the door.

Inside was dark, of course. I ignited my headlight mode, which brightened my eye to one hundred twenty watts.

It was a huge walk-in closet. Clothes hung along one wall. But the other wall featured a desk and chair, with papers and magazines scattered everywhere. Housekeeping was not allowed into this particular sanctum.

The real attraction was the wall above the desk. It was covered with pictures of people and places. Pins were stuck in each one, and colored string connected them.

Max had an entire corner devoted to him. Several pins. Red string. The string connected Max to pictures of the New Monarchy booth, a hospital, and a bottle of medicine.

I looked closer at the bottle. Then I wished I hadn't.

The other pictures showed people I didn't know. Each of them had a photo of a piece of jewelry tacked on beneath them - a necklace, a bracelet, a ring. What did that mean? Max had no jewelry on his pictures. No, but he had that bottle.

I'm ashamed to say how long I hung there, gazing at the wall of pictures. It took me two hours to figure out what it all meant. It wasn't until I read the newspaper clippings on the desk that the puzzle pieces came together in my mind.

I went through all the papers and transmatted several into my memory as evidence. As I did, a cold horror built inside me. Guardian Cheyenne had been right. Innocent lives were at stake. I had to get back to the Tower as quick as I could. It had taken me hours of riding monorails to get here, and it would be hours to get back.

I left the penthouse and flew toward the station. As I went, I contacted Bud, Paul Johansson's ghost. "Bud! I'm sending you photos of a lot of papers I found in Bradley Veneer's home office. Share them with Paul. The Blade needs to raid this penthouse, double-quick."

"Thanks, Zero," Bud said. He must have examined the information I sent, because his voice changed. "By the Traveler's bleeding Light!"

"Is Max still safe?" I asked.

"Yeah," Bud replied absently. "They let him go an hour ago."

"What!" I cried. "No! He was safer in that cell! Do you know where he is?"

"Back at work, I imagine," Bud replied. "He was talking about being behind. But he cooperated with us, and accepted a tracking bracelet. There was no reason to keep him locked up. He's not dangerous. I can see where he is, if you like."

"Yes, please." I boarded a monorail and hid under the seats. The train traveled faster than I did and would get me back to the Tower quicker. Max was loose in the Tower, and so was the killer. And now I knew what was going on, I also knew it was only a matter of time before the killer found him.

_If he's murdered, you could raise him as your Guardian_, the treacherous part of my mind whispered.

_No!_ the rest of me cried._ I want him alive, with all his memories. I don't want him to die. Not when I can save him._

Max had already suffered so much - I couldn't tolerate the thought of the terror and pain he would experience during a violent death.

The train left the station and picked up speed. I rode along and waited for Bud's response.

"Found him," Bud reported. "He's still at work, like I said."

I'd reach the Tower just as New Monarchy closed shop for the day. "Contact Guardian Cheyenne," I said. "She'll help you."

"She's a suspect," Bud said doubtfully. "Why do you think she'd help us?"

"Because she's been hunting the killer."

"All right," Bud said slowly. "Paul and I need to study these papers."

He broke the connection. And I traversed the Last City via monorail, alone with my fears and newfound knowledge.


	6. Chapter 6: Unmasked

The sun had set by the time I reached the Tower. The lights were on in the plaza as I zipped through. Redjacks still stood at their posts, which reassured me. They wouldn't stand idle while a killer took someone out in front of them.

I met Max coming down the walkway from the New Monarchy area, carrying his backpack and looking tired. "Zero?" he said as I approached.

"Max!" I exclaimed, flying around him. I flashed a healing beam up and down his body, so glad to see him that I had to do something. "I found all kinds of evidence. You're in danger!"

"Wait, hold on." He stopped and beckoned. I flew to hover above his outstretched hand.

"First," he said, flicking his hair out of his eyes, "what was that light you were shining on me just now?"

"Healing beam," I said in a small voice.

Max blinked at me and frowned. "I'm not your Guardian. Does that even work?"

"Maybe a little," I said. "I was glad to see you. That's all. It's kind of like giving you a hug."

That brought a smile to his face. "I missed you, too, Zero. Where did you go?"

"Your uncle's house," I said. I glanced at the walls on either side of us and the narrow walkway in between that led to the plaza. "Can we go somewhere with better lighting? I'm pretty sure the killer is after you."

Max looked sharply around, taking in the same details I had. Then he hurried to the plaza and sat on a bench under a light. "There," he said. "Nobody will sneak up on us now. So tell me. What was my uncle up to?"

"He was smuggling ether into the City to turn into a street drug," I said. "But it's worse than that, I'm afraid. He'd also sold a huge amount to a research hospital to use in cancer treatment. That's one reason he was paying for your treatments. They've been giving you ether, manufactured by Servitors for the Fallen."

Max blanched white under the harsh lights. He slumped against the back of the bench and made a moaning sound. "But ... ether's toxic to humans."

"It is," I said. "But there was a chance it could kill the cancer cells ... and it didn't work. You were dying _faster._ He had all kinds of doctor's reports on you."

Max was silent a moment, processing this. "So ... so I was an experiment. Why would the killer be after me? I'm going to die, anyway."

"This is the tricky part," I said. "I'm having to guess, at this point. But I think your uncle actually had a list of people he wanted dead, and you were on it. The doctors were going to disclose the ether experiment to you. Veneer was afraid you'd put two and two together and expose his operation. So he hired an assassin ... and promised to pay them in gold and jewels. Each target had a certain trinket associated with it. But something went wrong, and the assassin killed Veneer, instead. Since then, they've been running loose, stealing jewelry because that was their original agreement. Also, none of their targets have been in the Tower recently. Except you."

Max stared at me. Then he wrapped his arms around himself and gazed around the plaza at the normal, law-abiding humans and Guardians going about their evening business. "How am I still alive?" he said softly.

"I don't know," I whispered. "The killer almost had you the other night. But Lila's bracelet tempted them more than you did."

Max rocked back and forth a little. "Ether. I've been taking ether for months. They only said it was a new treatment, not that it came from a filthy Servitor. I'm glad they're changing my plan, now."

"Me, too," I said.

At that point, a woman strode up to us with that sort of stomping stride that meant she was angry. "You!" she exclaimed, pointing at me.

I blinked up at her, confused. Then I recognized her as the woman who had pulled Priscilla out of the bush. "Yes?" I said.

"You're that ghost who attacked my Priscilla!" the woman snarled.

Priscilla peeked over the woman's shoulder, her blue eye endlessly smug. "Meet my Guardian," she said.

My heart metaphorically sank. Priscilla had found her Guardian - and it was the woman who had rescued her. Now I was doubly guilty, not only of fighting with a sibling, but of hurting a Guardian's ghost. Plus, I had a fully-fledged Guardian to deal with.

"Um, yes, I'm sorry," I said. "She had sent this man to jail," I nodded at Max, "and I was angry."

Max stood up, looking at the woman with interest. "You're a Guardian? Did you die?"

"No," the woman snorted. "Ghosts can bond to a living partner. And you!" She turned her fury on me. "Priscilla tells me that you're a foolish, wicked ghost who abandoned your Guardian."

Max looked at me, eyes widening. "Abandoned your Guardian? What's she talking about?"

Just what I never, ever wanted him to find out. I floated there in indecision, not sure how much to say. Could I even explain why I had abandoned that spark in the wilds? Spark studies were unique to ghosts. Only the Reefborn Awoken came close to the science, and they kept it secret.

Priscilla took it upon herself to explain. She flew forward, spinning a new shell with rivets on it. "Oh yes, all we ghosts know what Zero did. She found her Guardian's spark and didn't resurrect them. That's a ghost's purpose, right? To resurrect their Guardian? And Zero didn't. That's when I named her Zero, because that's all she'll ever be. A big, fat, worthless, stupid Zero."

The woman and Max were staring at Priscilla, now. And their expressions were not charitable.

Max said, "Lady, tell your ghost to shut up."

"Hey," said the woman. "She's my ghost. Keep your remarks to yourself." She nudged Priscilla back into position at her shoulder. Then she fixed her attention on me. "You hurt my ghost, I'll have you know. You knocked her into a bush and her shell cracked. You're lucky it wasn't her core."

Max was still gazing at me. "Wait ... You said that ghost is why I went to jail?"

I nodded.

Max stood up, his expression hardening into a glare. He focused on Priscilla. "That was your fault?"

"Yes," Priscilla replied, backing up to hide behind her Guardian. "New Monarchy needed to know that you were receiving dirty money."

The woman suddenly studied Max. "You were?" Her gaze settled on the tracking bracelet on his wrist. "And you're not cleared, I see."

Max hid his hand behind his back. "It's really none of your business, Guardian. Or your ghost's. Now, please, leave us alone."

The woman studied both of us for a long moment. Then she jerked her head at Priscilla. "Come on, then."

As they turned to go, Priss twirled her new shell at me. "I found my Guardian. How many Guardians do you have? Zero." She laughed and disappeared.

Max and I watched them go in silence. The silence stretched longer and longer. Finally, he turned to me. "Zero ..."

"Don't," I said. "Yes, I abandoned my Guardian. Yes, I attacked Priscilla and hurt her. I'm a terrible ghost." I couldn't bear to look at him and see the condemnation in his eyes.

"Hey," he said softly. "It's all right, Zero. You must have had a good reason to not take a Guardian, right?"

He waited for my reply. A cool breeze blew around us, ruffling the leaves on the bushes and ornamental trees. My core ached with humiliation. Now he knew everything. I had nothing else to hide. I still couldn't bear to look at him, but I sensed he was watching my every move.

"The soul was damaged," I whispered. "The spark had so much Darkness in it. It's the kind we ghosts warn each other about, because that kind produce Warlords. I couldn't ... couldn't accept that person. Priscilla doesn't understand."

Max didn't say anything. I sneaked a look at him and saw him studying the pavement beneath his feet. I waited for him to say something. I felt like I'd showed him my true self, as if I'd turned my core inside out. Now the hammer would fall, and I had no defense.

"Zero," he said, sighing deeply. "I appreciate you doing all this for me. Finding evidence, clearing my name, all that. But ... fighting with another ghost? It's not worth it. I'm not your Guardian and_ I never will be_. Understand? I don't want to be a Guardian. I might get well now that they're not feeding me ether. The point is, you're following me around and getting into fights, and ... just ... stop."

The words tore me right down the middle. He might as well have reached into my core and quenched my Light. This was it, then. The final rejection. No more wishing and scheming and yearning. We were done. I finally met his eyes, so blue and earnest. His spark shone through them, warm and bright and unobtainable.

"All right," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I'll stop. I'm sorry." I wasn't sure why I was apologizing. "Just ... take care of yourself, Maximilian Ross. Go home until the killer is caught."

"I will," he said quietly. "I hope you find a good, strong Guardian."

I flew away from him, across the plaza, with no idea where I was going. I rounded the corner of a building and hid myself in the shadows there. I looked back at Max. He was watching me go, and something about his posture looked forlorn. He turned and walked toward the Tower lift. I watched him step inside and the doors close. It descended out of sight.

My hopes seemed to depart with him. Max was gone, my investigation finished. The Cormorant Blade had all the evidence to clear Max's name. Guardian Cheyenne was on the killer's trail. Nothing remained for me to do, except return to the wilds to seek my Guardian.

I settled on a ledge in the darkness and stared at the lift, hurting and empty. I knew I shouldn't have let myself fall for Max the way I had. He had just been so perfect, and I had been lonely for so long. Even Priscilla had a Guardian, now. I was still only the zero.

As I sat there, listlessly gazing at the plaza without seeing it, a figure appeared next to the lift doors. I was looking straight at them. One minute there was nothing. The next minute, a lanky figure stood beside the lift gate, pressing the call button. A cloak swathed them from head to foot. It shimmered a little as they moved.

I recognized it.

Out in the wilds, I had plenty of time to observe the alien races. I'd watched the Hive, the Vex, the Cabal, and the Fallen going about their strange business. The Fallen, in particular, were naturalizing to Earth. I'd seen them training their youngsters to move stealthily, seen them wrapped in cloaks lined with wires that generated an electrical field that bent the light.

That was no human standing there. It was a Fallen Vandal. He wore human boots on his feet, concealing his clawed toes. Some sort of helmet hid the glow of his four eyes. And the camouflage cloak concealed the rest of him. In the near-darkness of the plaza, he looked like one more Guardian standing there, waiting for the lift.

I watched him sniff the air exactly where Max had been standing. And in a horrible jolt, I knew what I was seeing. The assassin - an alien - was stalking Max.

The pieces of the puzzle I hadn't understood fell into place in my head. The reason for Bradley Veneer's death. The reason the bartender had laughed. The reason for that diamond on top of the wall. I saw it all.

The lift opened. The alien stepped inside. The doors closed and the lift descended.

I shot out of my hiding place in a blast of Light. I had to reach the ground before the lift did. It had only been a few minutes - Max would still be walking to the bus stop. The bus wouldn't arrive for fifteen minutes. He'd be sitting on the bench there, his back turned to the sidewalk, watching traffic. The alien had only to walk up behind him, and-

I hurled myself over the edge of the wall and let myself fall. Nearby, the lift hummed smoothly. It was an express, having to travel seventy stories in one long, swift shot. I propelled myself straight downward, using gravity to increase my speed. I angled my shell segments inward to lower wind resistance. And I matched the elevator's speed all the way down from the Tower.

I had time to wonder why I was bothering. Max had cut me loose. He had told me he never wanted to be my guardian. He probably never wanted to see me again, and so on and so forth.

I guess, the truth was, I hadn't given up on him. I'd probably go on making myself miserable over him until the minute he died. Then I'd resurrect him as my Guardian with no memory of any of this. I felt mean and sneaky, planning this. A ghost shouldn't feel bad about finding their Guardian, but I sure did. And he was the only Guardian I ever wanted.

In the meantime, I would do my best to make sure he lived as long as possible. And that included saving him from being murdered. It didn't make sense, and I didn't have time to reason it out.

I reached ground level the same time the lift did. I shot away up the sidewalk. Behind me, the lift doors opened, and the assassin stepped out and nodded to the guard. His disguise was good enough that the guard didn't bat an eye.

Now the assassin was walking along the street in an affected, human-like stride. The alien's legs were longer than a human's, and they tended to hunch over. This one had learned to stand straight and stroll along confidently. It almost passed as a human.

I fled along ahead of it, toward the bus stop. Max was there, in the distance, sitting alone on the bench. How did I expect to save him? I was a ghost with no weapons. All I could do was call for help.

I pinged Bud and Athena and dropped a red marker on the assassin's location. "Help!" I messaged them. "The assassin is a Fallen Vandal, and it's about to attack Max at these coordinates!"

I had no idea how long it would take either of them to arrive. In the meantime, it was only me and the sick human who refused to be my Guardian.

"Max!" I cried as I drew nearer. "Max!"

He turned, that untidy mop of hair and blue eyes so warmly familiar.

"Zero?" he said.

I reached him and hovered in front of him. "Max, he's coming for you. The assassin. He's a Fallen Vandal. He's right behind me, in the cloak. You have to run!"

Max leaped to his feet and looked. The assassin was about fifty feet away, striding along the sidewalk in its cloak and boots. As Max stood up, it increased its speed to a jog.

Max swore softly. "Zero, can you transmat me?"

I tagged him and transmatted him home. The assassin saw him go and slowed down. Then it saw me. Its head lowered, and I could almost see the grin spreading across its fanged face. It reached under its cloak and pulled out a transmat device.

I transmatted myself after Max. But that assassin had to know where we had gone - and it could follow.

Max was waiting for me in the middle of his apartment, panting, digging his fingers into his hair. "There you are," he said as I appeared. "I thought he got you."

"He's going to transmat, too!" I exclaimed. "Get your gun!"

Max scrambled for his desk and yanked his handgun out of a drawer. He had no sooner lifted it and jammed in a magazine, when a transmat flickered to life in a glow of blue sparks in the middle of the room.

"Zero, hide!" Max exclaimed.

I dove behind a chair.

The alien appeared in the middle of the room, towering and enormous. It glanced around, then flung off its cloak to reveal its four arms, each with big, powerful hands.

Max fired at its chest. He emptied the magazine into the alien, the muzzle flashes lighting the dark room. The alien flinched and staggered backward. But I could see the straps on its shoulders, supporting a breastplate of some kind. A small-caliber handgun wouldn't do much against body armor.

The gunshots stopped. Max fumbled to reload with shaking hands.

The alien straightened, pulling off its helmet. Its front was splattered with blue blood. It spat out a mouthful, then lunged at Max. It caught him with all four arms and lifted him off the floor by his arms and neck. Max struggled and kicked, but he was no match for the alien.

"I was going to make your death swift," the alien hissed. "But now, you shall suffer, ether-eater."

I flew out of hiding with no idea what I was going to do. But I couldn't stand by and let Max be tormented to death. I flew in front of the alien and flashed my headlight in its four eyes.

The alien hissed and jerked its head backward. Its grip on Max slipped. Max slid to the floor, where he writhed, kicked, and punched, trying to hurt the alien in any way possible. I kept my headlight aimed into the alien's eyes, even as it cringed and threw up two arms to shield itself.

Max ground the heel of his shoe into the alien's instep. It must have been a sensitive spot on aliens, even with the boots on. The alien hissed and twisted away, favoring its foot. Then it whirled and swung a fist at Max. It caught him in the stomach. Max crashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor.

Then the alien swung at me. I ducked. The clawed fingers failed to grab me, but knocked me spinning across the room. I fell behind the partition that concealed the bed.

The alien returned its attention to Max. It dragged him off the floor and sank its teeth into his arm. Max screamed. The alien shook him back and forth like a dog with a bone, its teeth shredding the flesh. One of the four hands closed around Max's face and forced his head backward, exposing his neck. It opened its jaws and released his arm, then stooped toward his throat.

I had to _do_ something. I flew into the air, desperate, panicking. I needed something heavy to use as a weapon. Something huge. Something like the refrigerator.

I tagged the refrigerator and transmatted into the air above the alien.

The appliance fell on the alien with an almighty crash. There was a tremendous crunching sound.

I flew around the appliance and alien to find Max. One of the creature's hands still gripped his throat, but feebly. Max broke its grip and scrambled aside as I arrived. "Zero, was that you?"

"Yes," I said. I checked the alien. Its eyes glowed hatefully from under the refrigerator. It flexed its muscles, trying to slide the fridge off. "The alien's not dead. Reload, quick!"

"I can't," Max panted. His left arm resembled hamburger from shoulder to elbow. It hung at his side, drenched in blood.

I played a healing beam up and down the wound. Some of the torn flesh mended, the bleeding growing less. Max groaned and made a sound like a sob. "That feels good. Light, how do you do that?"

"Please be my Guardian," I begged him. "I could heal any wound, if you were. I could cure your cancer."

"But I'd be a_ slave_," he moaned. "To the Traveler! I've heard the warlocks arguing about it."

"It's not slavery!" I argued, trying to heal him. "It's service." My beam's power was less and less effective with each pass. Beside us, the alien growled and heaved with its shoulders. The fridge shifted.

"What's the difference?" Max panted, fumbling for his gun. He crawled to his desk and groped in the drawer for another magazine.

"Service is what you do because you _want_ to," I replied. "The Traveler doesn't _make_ you fight. Some Guardians are healers and Cryptarchs, you know. They don't fight at all."

"Quite the argument," growled the alien, it's voice thick and muffled. "And what happens, little ghost, when the Light abandons your kind? Leaves you to rot in the darkness?"

"That's between your people and the Traveler!" I snapped. "You weren't enslaved, I notice."

"No, we weren't," the alien grunted, pushing against the fridge's weight. "We want the Great Machine back. Meanwhile, we scavenge and starve. I was offered gold and gems to take this human's life. Gold and gems trade for glimmer and ether. But the dog who hired me thought to withhold payment. I kill him. I take my payment from stupid humans. I kill this human. I leave, live in the Reef like a Kell. You make him your Guardian, little ghost. We all win."

Max and I gaped at the crushed alien. It was so beautifully simple, put that way. Yet the idea was as loathsome to me as waiting for Max to die, like a patient vulture.

"No," I exclaimed. "I don't want him dead, because he'd lose his memories. I don't _want_ a new Max. I want the _old_ Max. The one who - who chose - who chose not to be a Guardian." My voice broke.

Max stared at me, stricken.

The alien chuckled. "Why would any human reject the blessing of the Light? You must be more useless than I thought. No wonder the dog wanted you killed." It grunted and heaved, sliding the fridge sideways. It's head and arms were free. It lifted its head and inhaled. "In a moment, I shall relieve you of your useless existence, ether-eater. Consider it repayment for the six bullets in my abdomen."

"Zero," Max whispered, "call for help." He fumbled with his gun and a new magazine, his left hand slippery with blood, the fingers refusing to move because of nerve damage.

I sent another message to Bud and Athena, flagging our position. But I had no time to add a message. The alien was levering the fridge off itself with its four arms.

If it got loose, it would murder Max. I'd have a Guardian with no memories - if the alien didn't kill me, too, out of spite. I panicked.

And I transmatted every last piece of furniture on top of that alien.

First I dropped the bed on him, frame-first. Then I hit him with the table, the filing cabinet, a chair, and the refrigerator again. The alien disappeared under a pile of furniture with a curse and the cracking of bone. Then there was silence.

I flew to Max and stood guard beside him, watching the pile for any sign of life.

Max laughed weakly. He was huddled against the wall, the gun and magazine in his lap, unable to load it with his arm all mangled. "You wrecked my place, Zero."

"I'll put it all back," I promised. "I can repair anything that's broken. I just don't want him to get loose."

Max exhaled and closed his eyes. He was ashen, his hair sweaty and clinging to his forehead. He looked so vulnerable like that, sick and with his arm chewed up.

"You're badass, Zero," he whispered.

"Thanks," I whispered back.

We waited, watching the unmoving pile of furniture. Time passed.

"Zero," Max murmured hoarsely. "I was thinking, and ... I shouldn't have ... said never. About the Guardian thing. Could you give me time to think about it?"

My heart leaped. "Yes, of course," I whispered, brushing back his hair with the tip of my shell. "As much time as you need. But just ... don't die."

"That's the key," he murmured, his blue eyes glazed with pain. "You want me as is, with my memories. I could ... I could live with that. I just need time."

"All the time you need," I whispered.

Someone pounded on the door. "Max!"

I flew to the door and unlocked it. It flew open to admit Guardian Cheyenne, gripping Hunter's knives in both hands. Behind her were a squad of Cormorant Blade Guardians, all armed and fierce. They pushed into the room and stood staring, first at the injured Max leaning against the wall, then at the immense pile of furniture in the middle of the room.

"The killer is underneath," I said. "We don't know if he's dead."

Guardian Cheyenne laughed. "And that's how ghosts fight, boys and girls. Dirty and underhanded."

A chuckle rippled among the other agents.

As they moved forward to assist Max and check for signs of life beneath the furniture, I asked Cheyenne, "I assume this was what you couldn't talk about?"

She nodded. "That there was a Vandal loose in the Tower. It would have caused a panic. I couldn't _find_ him. And I'm one of the Vanguard's best trackers. I guess, in the end, luring him out was the best strategy."

I spun my shell, pleased. "It's not like I planned this."

"No," Cheyenne said, "but you were observant. Sometimes, that's all you need."

* * *

They called an ambulance and sent Max to the hospital. I went with him, staying at his side all night as they performed surgery on his arm. The doctors said his strength in his left hand would never be what it was. They also voiced concerns about how well he might heal, since his body was already compromised by cancer and drugs.

I quietly traced him with healing beams any time we were alone.

Sometime the following day, Max woke up and lay gazing up at me. "Well. Here we are."

"Here we are," I agreed.

He sighed and looked around the hospital room. After a moment, he said, "So, Brad hired a Fallen Vandal and was paying him in jewelry. The alien double-crossed him?"

"They double-crossed each other," I replied. "Veneer wouldn't pay, so the alien killed him. That's probably how that diamond wound up on top of the wall. The alien probably looted him before throwing him off the wall. And you know, another thing." I explained about the bartender who had laughed. "That bartender knew your uncle had hired a Fallen. When he found out the deal had gone south, he laughed. I guess it is pretty funny."

After a long moment, Max laughed a little. "I guess it is. In a morbid humor kind of way."

I gazed at him fondly for a while. He noticed and looked at me. "Plotting to make me an immortal demigod?"

"I just want to be your ghost," I replied. "The power is just a side effect. You're in pain right now, and I could heal it all."

"Not yet," he whispered. "Please, Zero. Not yet."

I could live with that. Not yet. But ... maybe soon.

* * *

The end


End file.
